Candidate says he loves Bernie Sanders. Why didn't he vote for him?

One underdog candidate from Brooklyn has wrapped his bid for City Council in the mantle of another—Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—but records show the Rev. Khader El-Yateem did not even vote in last year's presidential primary.

El-Yateem's run for the seat being vacated by Councilman Vincent Gentile has generated glowing write-ups in left-wing journals like the Indypendent and support from the People for Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America, all of which have compared him to the left-wing former presidential candidate.

El-Yateem himself has shared on Facebook images of himself with a Sanders campaign sign and highlighted in interviews that the independent socialist carried the southern Brooklyn district in the Democratic primary last June.

"Bernie Sanders really has paved the way for a person like me to take that courage and say 'I'm going to run for office.' He spoke about issues that made us stand and think," the Palestinian-American El-Yateem told a Democratic Socialists of America gathering in April, a video on his Twitter account shows. "He was the only one to stand there and say the word 'Palestine' and ending the [Israeli] occupation. He was the only one who motivated and inspired the Arab-Muslim community to go out in large numbers and vote for him."

But Sanders captured the neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and Bath Beach without a vote from El-Yateem himself. Board of Elections files show the West Bank-born Lutheran pastor did not show up at the polls April 19, 2016, even though he did cast a ballot in the state primaries that September and in the November general election.

Asked for comment, his campaign said he was out of the state on the day of New York's presidential primary. It did not explain why the Sanders enthusiast did not vote via absentee ballot.

Hillary Clinton crushed Sanders in New York by more than 300,000 votes, breaking the dark horse's six-state winning streak and gaining a prohibitive lead in delegates to the July convention.

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